Western Europe: What Labor Wants, Labor Gets

Widespread unemployment once made Italian workers
terrified of their bosses, but terror has turned to testiness. With
jobs aplenty in present-day Italy, strikes are as common as wolf calls
on the Via Veneto. Last week 800,000 textile and chemical workers
struck to back demands that would push labor costs up 70%. Radio and TV
employees entered the second month of a bitter dispute with
management over higher pay and job reclassifications.

Roman commuters half expect bus drivers to walk out in the middle of the
run, and a housewife never knows when she...